Gaming is getting too expensive. This feels like sort of an accident of complex systems. Budgets for games are skyrocketing, graphics requirements are skyrocketing. But, some of the most fun games in the world were made 30 ago. From a pure "can we have good entertainment?" standpoint there's no reason for this cost creep. In practice, companies are pushing it, and although it probably does not apply to the HN crowd, but consumers are also demanding better graphics.
The industry and its fans are its own worst enemies. However, if you don't go bonkers over recent AAA games, gaming has never been more accessible or cheaper. I didn't buy a game this steam sale for more than $3, and each game would run on more or less anything.
I do wonder if a studio that made a lot of smaller games with less technical specs but spent all the money in fun gameplay design and character design and stories would outcompete major AAA game studios.
I think I'm just describing mobile game studios pre-gachafication
I think you’re also describing the indie/lower-budget scene that does very well on Steam. There’s plenty of games that break out via streaming, for instance.
I think it's a function of growth at all costs (or to put more bluntly, capitalism). TVs need to continuously improve to keep selling, as do video game systems, etc. And graphics are the easiest benchmark to advertise progress, but also some of the most taxing systems to build because they're so complex that there are huge markets of commercial game engines to address this.
Good gameplay requires taste, nuance, experience. Things that are hard to quantify if you're an MBA.
That's annoying, but it's not why scaled manufacturing is lowering unit costs of panel production. Look at bare panel prices, they've followed the same cost curve down.
The same problem exists in the airline market. Airline ticket prices are historically very low, but people complain about seats, fees, and so on. But then they keep buying the absolute cheapest ticket.
What consumers say they care about, and what they actually care about, are not the same. Otherwise they'd pay more for the less irritating product.
>But, some of the most fun games in the world were made 30 ago.
This is true for every entertainment medium. Time filters out all the crap made so your left with a few timeless hits. Especially 30 years ago and in gaming?
Though to pick on 1996 , I just looked it up, that was a pretty crazy year of games in hindsight.
Why? It makes no sense really... you buy into a console and stay with it until the next release...
Last time I checked, the ps6 hasn't been announced, there probably won't be a Xbox one X/S/pro/whatever successor any time soon, and PC hardware is expensive or hard to get right now.
Just stay the road for 6 months and see how the market shakes out.
Consoles have been on their last gap as the difference between what consoles and PCs offer have converged. PS2 had significant sales because it was many customers first DVD player. With everything digital and console prices coming close to mid-tier Gaming PCs, where's the benefit of buying a console? Nintendo was smart for making the Switch a hybrid console.
If I were Sony, I would worry just as much about the people who bow out of playing games altogether, or just retreat into retro games especially with all the new Android handhelds targeting them.
Not sure why. looking at the polls it would seem the primary points are
1) Sony ending physical disks
2) potential high price of next gen.
1 is hilarious, even games that come on physical disks are already mostly useless without internet. I had a ps4 and bought "Last of Us" and the game is literally unbeatable without an internet connection. It has a game breaking bug that isn't patched on disk. Many other games are crap or broken without patches. Also jumping to PC where there hasn't been physical media in ages and 99% of games have DRM is just out of the frying pan into the fire. based on the market share for GOG I can assure you only a small fraction of gamers actually care about "owning" their games.
2 is kinda stupid, they mentioned a price point of $1,000, not sure you can build a next-gen-console comparable PC for that price. My current computer's GPU cost more than that by itself and anything but a pittance of RAM will too.
I mean go for it, more PC gamers the better (it's my chosen platform) but if you weren't already on board years ago not sure anything has really changed.
Physical disks were one of the last differentiators that consoles had. 20 years ago, you could buy a game, take it home, put it into the console, and begin playing straightaway. Now it has to be installed first to storage, which of course the console has a finite amount of and will cost you more money to expand it. There's also been a complete shift from local multiplayer and dedicated servers/server browsers to gating online play behind subscriptions and forcing everyone through matchmaking in order to serve up cannon fodder for more experienced players.
I for one recommend building an i7 box and really anything from that generation are still really good CPUs if youre making a gaming box. Otherwise you may run into RAM costs or some other high hardware costs.
Gaming is getting too expensive. This feels like sort of an accident of complex systems. Budgets for games are skyrocketing, graphics requirements are skyrocketing. But, some of the most fun games in the world were made 30 ago. From a pure "can we have good entertainment?" standpoint there's no reason for this cost creep. In practice, companies are pushing it, and although it probably does not apply to the HN crowd, but consumers are also demanding better graphics.
The industry and its fans are its own worst enemies. However, if you don't go bonkers over recent AAA games, gaming has never been more accessible or cheaper. I didn't buy a game this steam sale for more than $3, and each game would run on more or less anything.
I do wonder if a studio that made a lot of smaller games with less technical specs but spent all the money in fun gameplay design and character design and stories would outcompete major AAA game studios.
I think I'm just describing mobile game studios pre-gachafication
I think you’re also describing the indie/lower-budget scene that does very well on Steam. There’s plenty of games that break out via streaming, for instance.
this is sorta the Blumhouse model
I think it's a function of growth at all costs (or to put more bluntly, capitalism). TVs need to continuously improve to keep selling, as do video game systems, etc. And graphics are the easiest benchmark to advertise progress, but also some of the most taxing systems to build because they're so complex that there are huge markets of commercial game engines to address this.
Good gameplay requires taste, nuance, experience. Things that are hard to quantify if you're an MBA.
> TVs need to continuously improve to keep selling
All while getting cheaper in the process. Thanks capitalism!
Getting cheaper due to mandatory spyware that requires networking knowledge to properly isolate and disable. Thanks capitalism!
That's annoying, but it's not why scaled manufacturing is lowering unit costs of panel production. Look at bare panel prices, they've followed the same cost curve down.
The same problem exists in the airline market. Airline ticket prices are historically very low, but people complain about seats, fees, and so on. But then they keep buying the absolute cheapest ticket.
What consumers say they care about, and what they actually care about, are not the same. Otherwise they'd pay more for the less irritating product.
>But, some of the most fun games in the world were made 30 ago.
This is true for every entertainment medium. Time filters out all the crap made so your left with a few timeless hits. Especially 30 years ago and in gaming?
Though to pick on 1996 , I just looked it up, that was a pretty crazy year of games in hindsight.
Sure. Until the first FromSoftware PS6 exclusive is released.
Child, six, seriously considering running away from home after parents refuse to serve dinner on dinosaur plate.
People realize that Steam doesn't use physical media, right? The real issue is the lack of consumer friendly regulation, not the medium.
Why? It makes no sense really... you buy into a console and stay with it until the next release...
Last time I checked, the ps6 hasn't been announced, there probably won't be a Xbox one X/S/pro/whatever successor any time soon, and PC hardware is expensive or hard to get right now.
Just stay the road for 6 months and see how the market shakes out.
You missed the part where Sony is going download only, which means any attempt to collect playstation games in the long run becomes impossible.
I'm aware of that announcement, but its just words until they have a console to back it up with.
They will drop discs for the ps5 too starting 2028. They don't need a new console.
So they switch to Steam, a digital-only platform? In what world does that make sense?
[delayed]
Consoles have been on their last gap as the difference between what consoles and PCs offer have converged. PS2 had significant sales because it was many customers first DVD player. With everything digital and console prices coming close to mid-tier Gaming PCs, where's the benefit of buying a console? Nintendo was smart for making the Switch a hybrid console.
If I were Sony, I would worry just as much about the people who bow out of playing games altogether, or just retreat into retro games especially with all the new Android handhelds targeting them.
Not sure why. looking at the polls it would seem the primary points are
1) Sony ending physical disks
2) potential high price of next gen.
1 is hilarious, even games that come on physical disks are already mostly useless without internet. I had a ps4 and bought "Last of Us" and the game is literally unbeatable without an internet connection. It has a game breaking bug that isn't patched on disk. Many other games are crap or broken without patches. Also jumping to PC where there hasn't been physical media in ages and 99% of games have DRM is just out of the frying pan into the fire. based on the market share for GOG I can assure you only a small fraction of gamers actually care about "owning" their games.
2 is kinda stupid, they mentioned a price point of $1,000, not sure you can build a next-gen-console comparable PC for that price. My current computer's GPU cost more than that by itself and anything but a pittance of RAM will too.
I mean go for it, more PC gamers the better (it's my chosen platform) but if you weren't already on board years ago not sure anything has really changed.
Physical disks were one of the last differentiators that consoles had. 20 years ago, you could buy a game, take it home, put it into the console, and begin playing straightaway. Now it has to be installed first to storage, which of course the console has a finite amount of and will cost you more money to expand it. There's also been a complete shift from local multiplayer and dedicated servers/server browsers to gating online play behind subscriptions and forcing everyone through matchmaking in order to serve up cannon fodder for more experienced players.
Literally no point to specific hardware
I for one recommend building an i7 box and really anything from that generation are still really good CPUs if youre making a gaming box. Otherwise you may run into RAM costs or some other high hardware costs.